


Untitled 2

by capitainpistol



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Erotica, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22612351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitainpistol/pseuds/capitainpistol
Summary: Book and show Dany/Jorah, Jorah and Dany unfinished (usually explicit) drabbles/one shots.
Relationships: Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 56
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of random mostly unfinished Dany/Jorah one shots. I have an affinity for Book!Dany/Jorah, so that is the version you'll see most, but the show version will appear also. Sometimes I'll use things from both. The titles will mention which it is. Other times it will be short enough that it could apply to both versions. Titles will have most of what you need to know about that chapter and which version it is. Thanks for following!

Ser Jorah was quiet before her. What else do you do when your dream comes alive before you? She said it again in a shy whisper, seeing the trepidation on his branded ugly face. 

“I said... you may ask anything of me. Anything at all and it is yours.” Daenerys met his intense dark eyes, uncertain of what he would ask. “Anything.”

After a long silence he walked to her. She undid the knots on the back of her dress, palms wet with nerves. He stopped her from exposing herself and gently set her hand on her side.

Confused, Dany stared at her feet like a nervous scared girl who had never been with a man. To hide the relief she felt at his earthy salty scent. She had missed that, had missed him. She missed his voice and wished he would speak. He rarely spoke to her anymore. 

“This is what you want, isn't it?”

Jorah lifted her chin and nodded, no joy in her capitulation. 

She shut her eyes as he caressed her cheek, waiting, waiting, holding her breath and shivering. He trailed his fingers down to her neck, to her collarbone, chest rising and falling longer and deeper. He touched the strap on her shoulder. 

His gruff hoarse voice sent a bolt down her spine. “I ask leave,” Jorah bared her left breast, “to kiss my queen. One time.” His eyes went from hers to her nipple. His light cold touch made it stiffen and seemed to devour her warmth. 

Breathless and expectant, Daenerys nodded. One time? She should be glad of that, but she was not. “Granted.” 

Dany found herself holding on to his great wide shoulders when he knelt. Her mouth opened as his nose nuzzled against her chest, from her dress to her skin to the nipple. He smelled her too, his nose against the hardened dark pink point until finally he took it in his mouth and tongued it, bit it just enough to make her arch into him. He let out a hard grunt with his head pressed to her chest, as if in prayer and then released her.


	2. jorah in selhorys (adwd)

Buying one would be easier. There were a thousand Lyseni bed slaves up and down the Rhoyne. Ten times that in Volantis. He could find one, fuck her day and night.

Jorah slammed six gold Westerosi dragons on the whoremonger's table. 

“Are you mad?! Food. Armor. Swords. Passage. House of Black and White will do it for you, Andal. It is sad now, me taking your money like this.”

“I will take my money elsewhere.”

The whoremonger let him walk away, but gold was gold. He sighed loudly and had to go turn the big man around himself. 

“I can hire you, ser knight. Foreigners make better sport of corsairs, bravos and cats. Always needing scary men around for the weeping whores. Some men hit them. You may come in and hit the men.”

“ _You_ hit them.”

“That is so, when they steal or drink too much or tell me they have husbands now or babies in their bellies. Some men kill the whores. Sometimes the whores kill the men.” He waved his hands in annoyance. “I want no killings. Killing is bad for business. Only fuckings. I pay you in food and roof and I will even sail you to your games in the sand.” It was a good deal, more than generous of the whoremonger. A drunken mute brute everyone feared and everyone ignored who understood every word being spoken? “You may even have her, our silver, but one special time a year, not so much as now.”

Jorah gave him another gold coin. “And some rum.”

The Selhory silver brought the skin with her. Jorah had stripped out of his armor and fallen on the cushions scented with oils. She found him asleep, snoring loud. As quiet as she tried to be – was trained to be – the western knight felt her coming. He woke, stopped her with a dark stare.

That was not what he wanted however. 

The western knight was a simple creature. He liked to fuck her and he liked to sleep. He did not like to talk. That night he had her there, too drunk and battle weary to move. The silver preferred him like this. In his passion, the man would take her from behind and hold her by the hair. Those times he did speak, but it was in Dothraki so she never understood the words. The one she did know and had expected because it was what they all shouted, Khaleesi, he never uttered, not once.


	3. in vaes tolorro (early acok)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dany tended Ser Jorah’s wound herself, and it began to heal._ \- Daenerys I, ACOK

Ser Jorah was in pain but he was good at hiding it. If Irri had not said something,..

“Can you lift your arm?” Dany asked. “I must pull the wrap around. Turn, ser.”

Jorah turned halfway to her, forced to face her wrath. “It has stopped bleeding, Khaleesi.”

“So did Khal Drogo's.”

Dany did not miss the way he stiffened when she jumped off the cushions and went around him.

“Rest and sleep is all I need. I do not wish to trouble you.”

Dany knew him better. He did not wish to be close to her so soon after telling her of his Lynesse. “Have you found a place to sleep?” Every daybreak Jorah built their tents, his next to hers. 

Jorah nodded and his beard brushed against her cheek. She pulled away before her gooseprickles gave her away.

The big man smiled at her. “Thank you, Khaleesi.”

“A gift.” Dothraki did not believe in coin nor in gratitude. Gratitude shined in eyes nonetheless. She found herself touching his thighs and grinning. “What will you give me in return?”

“I have only my horse and my clothes. My sword is already yours.”

“It is.”

His smile widened and he began to look at her hair, her ears, her lips. Jorah bowed his head. She wondering if he was going to kiss her.


	4. back on dragonstone (post adwd)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i have a lot of different jorah kills brown ben for dany scenarios. this one takes place on dragonstone tho the timeline makes little to no sense ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Brown Ben Plumm's rotting head rolled to her feet. The stink was sickening. A day or two since he died. Empty black sockets stared up at her, lips eaten away by maggots in a grotesque mockery of his amiable smile. 

Dany wondered if Jorah hesitated killing Ben at all. Her gallant knight, the decapitator. 

She ordered him sent away, though she did not want to. There were too many here and Ser Jorah the Andal deserved more of a show than another banishment. To the dungeons, she said.

“To the question?” That was Varys. Ever so slight, his question touched with a hint of pity.

Daenerys let that sit in the air, let the room breathe and wonder.

“Did I say that?” She asked Varys. “Take him, and the head as well. One for the dungeon and one for a proper funeral. I will hear the others.”

No more than fifty, but they took the rest of the day. Ben's head she took care of first, going out to the ramparts to feed it to Drogon. She passed the dungeons on her way back to the Storm Drum, where she sat in the crook overlooking Dragonstone on the Painted Table.

Missandei followed her all throughout, quiet and watchful. She walked to the eastern terrace to see what she could of the narrow sea. It was a dark, dreary night, but this was Dragonstone. She expected no less.

“Ser Barristan bring me Jorah. Discretely, if that's possible.”

Her old Lord Commander did not like that. “What will you do with him?”

Slap him? Banish him again? Fuck him? “I don't know yet. If you would be so kind, Barristan.”

Ser Barristan and Missandei shared a look, one she saw them share more often lately. Their little conspiracy.

“I do not need to eat. I broke my fast with enough venison this morning. If I have more I will wretch it up.”

“Some spiced wine. It will make you strong,” said Missandei, coming back to stand hy her.

“And it is the hour of the wolf. The sun will come up soon and it will be a day since, Your Grace.”

“If you will have your way. Go.” Then she said suddenly, “To my chambers. I dismiss you both when all is done. I will fly tomorrow= later today. Court will begin midday.”

Another long, conspiratorial look between the young girl and old man who loved her. 

“You want to be alone with Ser Jorah?” asked her Lord Commander.

As to that, she still did not have an answer.

-

Ser Jorah Mormont stood before her, sunburnt and bloody under ragged borrowed breeches and tunic. Even dirtier than before. Barristan was hesitant to leave the keys for Jorah's menacles, but Daenerys held out for them.

“Thank you, Barristan, and tell Missandei I do not need her for my ride. She may sleep in as well.”

Ser Barristan did not have the little scribe to flank him. He glowered at Ser Jorah. “If you-”

“-if I what?” Jorah said with a bitter laugh. “Did I cross half the world to kill my queen?”

“Why not? You are all the same. You oathbreakers.”

“That is enough, Ser Barristan. Jorah will not harm me and my patience for my gallant knights is not infinite.”

Her Lord Commander bowed and glowered one more time at Jorah before departing.

Daenerys walked to her closet where she undressed. “Are severed heads the way to win your queen's favor? Or were you mocking me by mocking Daario?”

“A little of both, Daenerys.”

“ _Your Grace_.”

Her nakedness made him catch his breath, and she let him look at her before she threw him the keys and turned away for a robe. The manacles clinked and fell to the floor. She heard him sigh and glanced back to find him looking at her but rubbing his wrists. When she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and body, he came up behind her and helped slip it on. 

“A bride gift?”

“That was some time ago and Hizdhar is dead.”

“I would have given you his head. A mountain of Harpy's heads.”

“Executing traitors is weary work.” Daenerys slipped from his fingers and sat at the table where Missandei had set out her makeshift supper. She sat and watched him gather his wits. “Do you recommend it?”


	5. shadowdancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pillow talk, kind of. drugs tw / slight dub-con / cousincest mention

He was with his Aunt Maege the first time he saw men burning. Reavers jumped off longships a mile off shore, bodies of flame swallowed by the tide. 

“If you have to make a choice... drowning won't last as long,” she said, kneeing her mount and turning them back. Jorah smelled little smoke and heard only the waves. 

Maege reached the palisades outside of Longhall before nightfall. She jumped right off and helped him down, giving him the reins like a true squire though she was no knight. “Feed him again and a new saddle. One mount for yourself, too, little lord. We are closer to your father than the seatowns and can get there faster by ourselves. An hour, understood?”

Jorah nodded and left his aunt, marching the horse to the stables where three quarters of Bear Island's mounts were kept. His lord father and Aunt Maege kept a wing for the Mormont horses, bred to bear the weight of great big Mormonts.

He entered the stables intending to go there, but there was nothing and no one and no torches. No stalls or horses in them. Just a table and a burned man on it. A huge man in patchwork armor, dying. All of his left arm, his left torso and part of his left thigh seared. Leather and steel melted into his flesh. He shivered from fever and his lips were blue. Big dark eyes. A bald head and a beard partly singed off. A terrible brand on his cheek.

“She was right,” he said. The burned man's voice sounded strangely like his fathers, if his father was in intense pain. He even looked like him, but bigger with muscle and black hair instead of grey. “I remember. You were always quiet. You will grow out of that.”

“Aunt Maege is giving me books to read,” said the little lord defensively.

The burned man nodded, knowing why. Northern boys were not supposed to be bookish. “I gave them away.”

Jorah felt a tingling on his skin and he could not stop staring at the man's ugly brand. “Aunt Maege says I can't or I'll be cursed.”

“She was right about that too.”

Little Jorah frowned. “Why are you burning? I'll get my aunt. One of my cousins may be around. Maege will know what to do or Alysanne. I'm going to be lord, but she's older than me and Maege says I must get her if she's not around.”

The man laughed. “You like her, I know. You'll have her.”

The boy's face turned red. “She is a woman grown and betrothed.”

“He'll die in winter in a few years. After we... afterwards I asked Maege if I could marry her. Stupid boy.” 

The burning man began to sputter and convulse. 

Jorah ran away, scratching his arms and calling for his aunt. He touched the ax on the shield wall for good luck and said a prayer to the She-Bear and her babe, running faster to Longhall. He opened the doors and met bright dragonflame.

-

Jorah woke in a sweat, the air hot and thick with incense and shadows dancing against the tent walls.

Her shadow. She made them above him. Her thighs locked on his sides.

Dappled in sweat, she hugged her robe to her chest, eyes shut. The numbness receded, the memory of searing flesh. The moment she came Jorah snapped his hip high into her. 

Queen Daenerys' combed back her silver-gold hair and finally looked at him. 

He would not ask her what was wrong. Something was always wrong. So he touched her cheek. About to open to his mouth to speak.

Daenerys put a finger to his lips. He was still inside of her. Aching inside of her. 

He smiled at her and she tut-tutted him like a proper septa. “Don't,” she said, as if the word was wrung out of her by force. “Don't say anything. You know what happens.”

He took her fingertip in his mouth and bit it. “Come here,” he said, the words muffled. “I will warm you.”

She rolled her eyes and dropped to his chest. Her skin throbbed from her climax. Both could start counting rivulets on the others nose. “Why are you so damn stubborn? We agreed-”

“-we did not agree.” He caressed her back and entered her again, so slick he covered his cock completely to the brim. “There you are. The shiver is gone.”

Another replaced it, warmer and sweeter. He fucked her and held her, saved his kisses until he spent inside of her again. Daenerys whimpered and yawned and moaned all at once, the sound so strange that it made him laugh. He lifted her chin and combed back more sweat off her temples giving her an austere look. She yawned again.

“You woke me, remember?”

“No. You fell asleep, old man. All that shade will make your pretty lips blue.” She crunched up higher and parted his lips with her nose and then her tongue, kissing him deeply and tasting the elixir, the barest hint of lemons, leather and salt.

“I don't believe you've ever said I was pretty.”

“An empty compliment. I'm only using you for your body. And you were right. I lied. You were asleep.”

Jorah laughed and the rumble helped her right off to lay at his side, her back to him, her head on his shoulder. She played with his fingers one at a time, scratched his palms and the length of his outstretched arm underneath her cheek.

“You looked afraid. Was it a nightmare?”

Jorah did not wish to speak of it. “I don't recall.” Most of it had faded. There was a dragon he knew, there was always a dragon. And dragonflame. There had been two of him 

“Did you dream of me?”

“I did.” He closed his bulk behind her and kissed the back of her neck Her buttocks rounded against his him in anticipation. “I dreamt of home. You were waiting for me.”

“I know you're lying.”

His laugh was a rush of heat around her neck. 

“Prove it.”

“You said _maegi_.”

The word frightened her. Jorah caressed the fear out of her, squeezed her tight in one of his bear hugs. He kissed her shoulder and said, “ _Maege_. My father's sister. I adored her. Did everything she wanted.” 

“You never tell me what you truly dream of.”

“Neither do you.”

“Do you want to know?” She arched back to strain her neck.Jorah kissed her cheek and then her nose. He nodded,feeling her disquiet as if it came from him first. She said, “I dream I'm a dragon and I eat you.” Jorah smiled and kissed her softly on the lips.


	6. grief (show ver; 8x04)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dany in 8x04

Cold and blue. 

Daenerys drank her spiced wine in the hot torchlit great hall of Winterfell, surrounded by laughter and joy, the warmth of the living loving each other. She tasted smoke and ash in the back of her throat and swallowed down bile. Stayed her tears, embraced the hunger pangs. Her head clamored. Better that pain than the memory of Ser Jorah lying there on the pyre. One amongst the thousands, as if he was just another dead man. Unadorned. Forgotten. No one said a word about him.

_He would hate it, but he deserves it._

Deserved. He _deserved_ it. 

Ser Jorah rode with Kings and Khals. Commanded the greatest army on both sides of the Narrow Sea. Traveled across the world and back. Escaped death half a hundred times. Daenerys should have made a pyre all his own, to send him to the nightlands. She should have done a lot of things.

Not for the first time she aches to hear his voice, but his lips are blue when she shuts her eyes and when they open in her thought she hears the slithering of worms devouring him from the inside. She fears forgetting. She feels forgotten. His skin dry where she kissed him goodbye. The only time she ever kissed him... _no_. The second. Not for the first time guilt shames her.

Guilt and regret.


	7. history is a weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by ~the princess irulan

Modern scholars would have us believe every new century brings with it new ideas. To put it bluntly, that is not so. The foundation of progress has been the same since the Dawn Age. There are new discoveries, new inventions and new laws, but these things are forever built upon the cyclical nature of the universe of which all things are beholden. Fire was always fire. Dragons were always dragons. Sickness. Salt. Songs. Life and death. Even the double bladed monstrosity of magic. These things existed before we knew they existed, that is to say things are known to us or they are unknown. Once they are known they are altered. A river is a river until someone builds a dam, for mankind itself churns within cycles of creation and destruction, the only creatures to rival the myriad gods in such feats.

The Archmaesters of the Citadel named this foundation a wheel, turning and turning. The Faith has its Seven who are One, allowing for choice in seven sided rainbow temples. The Braavosi, the escaped slave survivors of Valyria before the Doom, are closest in our estimation to encapsulating the truth of the world in housing all the gods and accepting all gods children from all corners of Terros. Here the wheel turns on water and the philosophical truth comes from its flow and the power it generates to sustain life on the thousand islands. We in our secret society view Terros in that regard. One land in one ocean in one world in one void with one sun under one Heaven, perhaps under a single monotheistic god. 

Amongst ourselves there is much debate about giving theistic power to these possibilities (these unknowns), especially and specifically the challenging of the gods who already are. Rather to say, if the wheel is the foundation religion is the road on which it rides and those can lead anywhere. We willingly walk away from the road, far enough that we have speculated on the chance existence of other suns and other Terran-like planets. Perhaps one day we may build ships to sail the stars and seek them, but who is to say how the waters of Terros will flow in five hundred or even a thousand years. For now, we write for posterity, for ourselves, for the kindly patrons who risk their lives in supporting us, and for whoever (man, woman or child, boy or girl, highborn or low) finds us. There is no ultimate goal, whatever may have been said of us. We do not claim absolute truth. We want simply to understand what was to better understand what will be. It is daunting, we know, but it is merely one belief amongst many and a dangerous one, but what challenges are not dangerous? We are one people, we are one world. We are in it together. We are our history. We are our future. The seed is planted. The seed grows. 

Two thousand years ago dragons burned through the East and created the barren no man's land called the Red Waste. A thousand years later, long after dragons died, a young girl lost her husband and child and birthed new dragons. This girl ended the feudal stronghold of Westeros that had reigned for over ten thousand years (barring the Northern lands ruled by the Red Starks, descendants of Queen Sansa Stark) and released Drogon the Last God onto the East, giving the Asshaii Sun Emperor Ly and his Moon Empress Chani all the power they needed to begin their conquest of the West with the first engine ships. Could Nymeria herself have imagined it? Thirty thousand ships breathing cannons and a score of dragons called the Army of the Red. The conquest took a mere four years and the Chan Dynasty (for the Asshaii take the name of the elder in the marriage) has ruled since, marrying their only rivals, the Dothraki. Khal Aego, himself a descendant of Khal Aggo, one of Daenerys Targaryen's bloodriders, long honored the memory of the first and only Khaleesi to rule them and named his firstborn and heir Lyo Daenis Chan after Daenerys, she who is Khal Empress today. It was Daenis who commissioned the first secret history of Daenerys Targaryen and sent an emissary to Westeros in search of the lost works of Samwell Tarly, known to history as Sam the Slayer.

Amongst the works found in that search were several discarded chapters focusing on Targaryen history, giving rise to the popular new theory of the Slayer having divided loyalties. That is the crux of our chagrin with the latest wave of revisionism. Of all historians it is Samwell Tarly whose work is most prolific, even barring the aprocyphal texts the Citadel slowly omitted from his works over the centuries. Together with his extensive journals, notes and personal collections (and those of the less known wilding writings of Gilly Flowers) we have a massive source of that time collectively called the Song of Westeros or the Song of Ice and Fire. Though it is now commonly believed to represent Lord Commander Jon Snow (for ice), a Stark bastard, brother to Queen Sansa, and Daenerys Targaryen (for fire), Asshaii scholars and several texts show rather the dichotomy to be one united whole signifying an ancient prophecy with disastrous results if unrealized, which many believed to have been so, including the death cults who continously seek life after death.

Sam the Slayer himself did not dwell too much (or at all) on the romanticism of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, initially intending his title to represent the unity of opposites and the tragedy of their end. While not a Targaryen loyalist, it is clear through his work of his deep empathy for others and his ability to approach them with a kind eye. It is these works that inspired the creation of our anonymous pamphlets seeking to understand our world. The most curious of his discarded texts is the one he titled after an ancient Westron song, the Bear and the Maiden Fair, in which his thesis of unity is most realized and where Daenerys Targaryen is the heroine. Versions of this story have been passed through history both written and oral. It is the the story of Ser Jorah's doomed love for Daenerys and her grief for him killing her long before Jon Snow assassinated her in the Red Keep. 

We leave you with an excerpt telling of the Slayer's empathy and insight and warning for a future divided.

“Here is what we know, Drogon is out there. Here is what I know, Drogon lost and grieved as any man, woman or child would. With my own eyes I saw him cradle Daenerys as she cried and held the dead body of her loyal servant, Ser Jorah Mormont, the only time she ever touched him so intimately. They met as exiles, when he was loyal to the Iron Throne. Her death was his pardon. Ever after he sought her approval and her heart, obtaining one but never the other. He crossed the world for her, he fought for her. Together they conquered worlds. He lived for her, knowing he would never have her, and he died for her, as he promised. I saw her take the torch to his pyre and watched the fire take him. A part of her went with him, perhaps the part that could not love him, leaving her with the part that finally did. I saw my friend and commander Lord Jon Snow, the man she did love, the man she chose, the man who killed her, standing next to the melted metal tears of what was the Iron Throne. Did Drogon spare the man who killed his mother, the rider of his dead brother Rhaegal? If so, that was mercy. Had Jorah lived, Jon Snow would not be alive. Had Jorah lived, perhaps King's Landing would not have burned. Did Drogon recognize the futility of his mother's pursuit of power and blame the game of thrones? If so, it means one terrifying thing. He is still out there, grieving, and he who grants mercy need not grant it a second time.”


	8. sparring

Daenerys saw it between long strands of sweat matted hair stuck to her forehead. The blindspot he spoke of so often. A fleeting chance between seconds of nonstop frantic hand to hand combat. She ducked, the ache in her muscles forgotten, ignoring the sting in her eyes. She smiled, completely confident, full of adrenaline. This is why men fight! For this moment.

Jorah saw her smile and she saw him consider the change, surprised.

Too late, she would have said, but that was boasting. A fight wasn't over until it was over, came his voice from earlier lessons, ephemeral in the wind as she split the air in half with her body. Daenerys had never been so fast, not on the run, not cowering under Viserys with her arms as shields. This was a different kind of speed. The entire world opened before her with this kind of speed. She heard Jorah's voice warning: careful, careful. If wanting to win was enough, everyone would.

One second. She had one second to take advantage of her speed and position, his shock and his blindspot. Take him down. Half a second. The bigger they are...

She didn't want to hurt him, but he would be proud. She felt the ripple of his missed swing, cool against her sweat dappled skin. A millisecond. Lower she went, momentum on her side. How did she do it? She did not know, but she did. 

Smack! On the back of his knees. All those taut nerves dissolving under the hilt of a blunted Unsullied lance. If it had been speared she would have shattered his legs in half.

All two hundred and sixty pounds of Ser Jorah fell forward, but the big man was quick. He broke his fall with his free hand and kept enough balance to turn on his back as gravity sucked him down.

Daenerys twirled around, exulting. Her smile stayed with her as she rushed to him. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry...”

Red faced and in pain, he breathed hard. He did not get up. 

“Jorah? Are you -”

Jorah pulled at her lance and brought her down on him, a big grin on him. “Again?”

Daenerys glowered, straddling him, her nose to his. “I will get you for that, Jorah Mormont. Again!”


	9. pardons (mix show/tv ver)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> posted before as Untilted 1.5. Adding it to the collection.

Jorah entered their bedchamber, face flushed with a smile. He had something to tell her. Daenerys hugged her knees, soaking in the heat of the tub. He stopped to look at her, tilted his head the same way, taking a deep breath like he always did when he wanted her. Used to confuse her, that look, frighten her with its intensity.

What came next frightened her more. He read her mood, forgetting whatever he had to say and following her eyes to the pardon on the table. Jorah walked to it like a man condemned, needing to read only a few words before he crushed it in his hand and tore it in two.

“If you say you don't want it, I'll probably hate you again.”

He did not answer right away, but he answered and truthfully. “I do want it, but... but this was not the way.”

“There was a right way?”

“Aye, my queen.”

“Queen of what? Queen of this tiny tin tub. Queen of Bear Island? Of Lord Jorah Mormont's cock?”

Jorah's neck reddened in anger. “Now you mock me with no need. I will not defend myself this time. I have nothing to defend.” He shook his head in disbelief. “This... Daenerys, I...” He stopped himself, realizing he was about to do what he swore not to.

“What was the way? How were you going to get me to bend the knee?”

Jorah knelt in front of the tub. “Never. I was never going to ask you. You're right. There is no right way. Only a plan. A foolish old bear's plan for another woman he cannot have.”

“Tell me,” she said.

Jorah tilted his head again to look into her eyes. He stroked her back with his wide huge hands and combed her hair out of her damp face flushed with heat.

“First I sent up this bath, because the heat makes you as lazy and happy as a dragon in the sun. Then I was going to take you to bed and make you happier and lazier. Keep you there and have you every way I want you, until you could not do without me between your thighs.” Jorah drew hot water over her shoulders, made her gooseprickles disappear. Made her smile. Made her flush. “Then I was going to ask you to come to Bear Island with me. To show it to you. To ride with you through the deep green woods of hundred foot trees, moon-white streams in between. Rivers so cobalt you would believe a mirror glass could sway. Colors winter has never conquered and exist nowhere else, not even the Dothraki sea we once saw together in full bloom. I wanted to show you where the bears sleep, where I had my first woman, where I killed my first man. All in the same place, as it happens, but not at the same time. “ That made her laugh and he was glad, but he did not laugh. “I wanted you to see it so you could see why I yearned to return.” Jorah paused, resigned to unhappiness. “Then, if my cousin allowed me into the Long Hall, I was going to ask for your hand.” He squeezed her neck gently, squeezed the tension out until she shut her eyes and opened them again, but he did not move her cheek from lolling on her knees, she did not stop hugging them. Jorah grazed her bottom lip with his thumb, his eyes following the pink curve of her mouth as it opened. Was he ever going to kiss her again? “Daenerys, I didn't know. I swear it.” His hand trembled. All his gentle strength left him, that sweet comfort of his caress with it. He dropped his head. “This is not fair.” And shook it. “This is not fair.” His bald spot turned red. His great hulk of a body rumbled with a bitter laugh. “Why would the gods do this? I had you... I never thought...” Jorah heard her rising, the water sloshed against the tin. He lifted his chin and found her sitting upright in front of him. She stroked the beard down his cheeks, touched the demon tattoo he was so ashamed of like she did when she straddled him. ”I had you... for a little while. I was happy.” Jorah kissed her cheek wondering if this one was to be the last. “I made you happy, didn't I? Your old, ugly bear made you happy.”

Daenerys gently drew away, nuzzling against the cool of his scratchy beard. Her wet silver-gold hair tangled into the black. “He did.” Jorah heard the past tense, nodded and made to stand, but Dany gripped his thick forearms. “He does. He makes me very happy, yet he broke my heart once.”

“And never again.”

Daenerys drew him down back to her. “He breaks it now. You want to go home, Jorah.”

“You are my home, Daenerys.”

“You want to go home.”

“You want me to make a choice? Fine. I choose you. I lost Bear Island a long time ago.”

Dany looked at him carefully and said again, quietly. “Do you want to go home, Ser Jorah? With me?”

Jorah looked down at her breasts, at the droplets beading down the muscly curved path they made in between down, down to the rippling water. “Yes,” he admitted. “But that's nothing. That doesn't matter. I would never ask you to kneel before anyone. Never.”

“That is not what you ask. Your plan ends on Bear Island. We must needs get to Bear Island to see the plan through.”

Jorah did not understand. Daenerys didn't let him think. She rose to press her wet body to his cold surcoat and kissed him. “Come in here with me,” she said, pulling.

His despair left him. “Where will I sit? This was for you, my queen.”

“I know where I'll sit.”


End file.
